Spring Break, Internet Dating and Getting Caught
by writeforlove
Summary: “Just promise me you won’t agree to meet him in any out of the way places. 'Cause your death would kinda put a damper on Christmas.” Casey might have snapped, but that just might have been the nicest thing Derek had ever said to her. Dasey moments


A/N: Yeah, so I'm pretty sure these things are a lot more fun to read than to write, but I thought I'd share anyway… Some of these little snatches of story may eventually become actual fics. If you've got any opinion about that, tell me in a review!

Disclaimer: I don't pretend to have any claim on Life with Derek or related characters, nor will I endeavour to make a profit from them!

**1)I Would Walk 500 Miles- the Proclaimers**

"This isn't about whose friends hate who!" Casey screeched at her irritated boyfriend, across the entryway into her home, "This is about loyalty!"

Derek made a scoffing sound and suddenly his very angry stepsister had spun to glare at him. "Oh, have you got something to say?"

"Nah, just thinking that Greg must be plenty loyal to have stuck it out this long with you," he said leaving the room.

**2)****.com-**** Prozzak**

"Seriously, Case, _Internet dating?_" Derek asked, a bit afraid for her safety and a lot amused at her desperation.

"It is not!" she protested stiffly, glaring at the stepbrother who was sprawled on the bed in her dorm room. "We're just pen-less pen-pals, is all!"

"Does he know that?"

There was something in Derek's sceptical expression that made Casey blush. "Yes," she insisted, "He most certainly does!"

"Just promise me you won't agree to meet him in any out of the way places," Derek insisted, seeming serious now, "Cause you're death would kinda put a damper on Christmas."

Casey might have snapped, but that just might have been the nicest thing Derek had ever said to her.

**3)Sex on Fire- Kings of Leon**

It was raining, but Casey bolted out of his apartment anyway. She couldn't exactly stay and face what had happened there the night before.

She didn't have her car, but that didn't matter, she could walk. She was pretty much soaked to the bone already, what difference would walking home make?

None.

Except, she couldn't even take that first step away from him. She froze on his path for the longest time, until she spun around and damned the consequences. So what if she'd just slept with Derek Venturi? Why should she freak when she could just march back in there and do it all over again?

She was back before he even knew she had left.

**4) Holiday- Greenday**

Casey blamed it partially on Spring break.

It was the whole institution, and its pressure to go wild for one week far from home.

She blamed it mostly on Derek Venturi.

After all, he was the one pouring the drinks. He was the one who had dragged her to Florida, of all places. He was the one who had 'lost' all her luggage and replaced it with things borrowed from various bimbos.

_(Maybe she should have blamed it on herself._

_She was the one who had kissed him first, after all.)_

Really, Derek had been pretty reasonable on the way down, letting her stop at historical landmarks to her heart's content and even control the radio sometimes.

(And she may have been the one who got them arrested and shipped back home following an incident with a burning flag.)

**5) Rated X- The White Stripes**

Once Casey would have said the quickest way to get a reputation was to sleep with a lot of guys (or maybe to be a cheerleader).

Now she knew for certain that the fastest way was to be seen holding Derek Venturi's hand in public. (That was doubly true for his stepsister, apparently.)

The weird thing was, she could handle all the guys and their comments and catcalls. And okay, maybe that was because Derek was shielding her from the worst of it, but still, who cared what Ryan 'the Fridge' thought of her? And so what if a certain kind of guy was nicer to her because they thought she could get in her pants?

She had Derek against all that.

**6) The End- The Doors**

Maybe she had said a million times aloud that there had to come an end to this thing between them, but she had never really believed it. She thought they would last forever, bickering and fucking and loving each other under all the hostility.

She had figured that their relationship was too dysfunctional to do anything but function.

But apparently that wasn't the case.

All good things come to an end, and all pain passes with time, right? So she supposed a relationship that was both was doubly doomed.

But somehow, she just couldn't react properly.

They fought like crazy for nearly an hour, until he finally said the one thing that brought on silence with a vengeance.

"Maybe this isn't working out."

And now, here they stood, no words passing between them, drowning in separate pools.

Funny, she would have thought that when the end came, screaming and yelling and name-calling and fighting would have accompanied it. Yeah, that was it. Casey would have thought that her relationship with Derek would have gone down fighting.

Instead, she nodded once and walked away.

Later there would come the regrets and the begging and the (attempted) reconciliation. For right now, all there was, was the end.

And so she walked on down the hall.

**7) Eight Days a Week- the Beatles**

This whole sneaking-around-secret-relationship thing was a full time job. And of course, Casey had to make it harder than it needed to be.

Really, he could have been happy just locking the door to his room and staying in there with her forever, the rest of the world be damned.

But Derek let her make her elaborate plans and concoct her complex schemes and create her complicated alibis. If she wanted to spend every spare second focused on him, who was he to stand in her way?

(Besides, it was more fun to mess with her plans than he would ever admit.)

**8) Every Little Thing She Does is Magic- Sting**

He was bewitched, enchanted, ensnared… that was the only excuse.

There was no plausible, scientific reason for him to be so turned on just watching her go about her day. Half the things she did had no right to be so damned sexy. She shouldn't be able to turn him on while doing the laundry. She shouldn't be able to turn him on while writing an essay. She (really, really) shouldn't be able to turn him one while playing a board game with their siblings.

And yet, every day, he found himself in the same predicament.

Everything she did caught his attention, made him more aware of her but he couldn't ever touch her.

He was bewitched, dammit!

**9) Babydoll Gone Wrong- Skye Sweetnam**

Her sister had changed. That much was obvious to Lizzie as she watched her sister practically have sex with their stepbrother every morning while arguing over breakfast.

The weird thing is, despite the grossness factor, she didn't really mind. Sure, Casey was kind of… twisted now, but she was tougher, somehow, too. She didn't seem to care as much what people thought, and maybe that was only because she was too caught up on what Derek thought of her, but it was still kind of nice.

Casey was still psychotic, of course. Now, though, her psychosis seemed a tad less neurotic.

And that was all right with Lizzie, whatever the reason.

**10) I Want to Hold Your Hand- the Beatles**

It was stupid, really, but Derek couldn't work up the nerve to just reach out and hold his girlfriend's hand. Honestly, they'd been sleeping together for months and making out even longer, and he couldn't just wrap his hand around hers, at least not while they were out in public.

Maybe it was because they were always so secretive about their relationship (with good reason, really, could you imagine if it all came out?). Maybe he was just incapable of openly displaying affection for someone.

But they had driven for two hours just to shop in a mall where they were sure no one they knew would see them, and he was going to act like he was half of a normal couple for a change.

So he would stop worrying about why it was so hard to hold her hand and just do it. Now.

Like, right now.

Yeah… any time now…

Okay, so maybe after lunch he could manage it, that wasn't chickening out. He had every intention of holding her hand.

But then it wasn't an issue because she slid her hand into his. And he sighed in relief.

"God, Case, have I ever told you I loved you?"


End file.
